Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
For most float centers, the summer months drastically change how busy it gets. It seems that zenning out to nothingness is moderately less appealing when there’s a lot of outdoor activities to enjoy.
Graham and Ashkahn share their thoughts on a reduced schedule. Float On runs 24 hours almost every day throughout the year. so reducing their schedule is typically against their philosophies. They explain some of the reasons people might consider it, what are some good ways to go about it, as well as explain some practices to consider avoiding when cutting hours.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: Hey hey, welcome everybody.
Graham: Hello. Another day, another podcast-
Ashkahn: That’s right.
Graham: As we say.
Ashkahn: As one of us says. Thanks for coming, thanks for joining us. We’ve got a question today.
Graham: Yup, and I’m Graham-
Ashkahn: Oh, yeah.
Graham: I will be one of the people answering the question.
Ashkahn: And I’m Ashkahn. That’s right. Yup.
Graham: Today’s question is, “is it a good idea to cut back hours during the slow season?”
Ashkahn: Slow season.
Graham: This is one of those questions where it kind of all depends, and there’s not just a single answer.
Ashkahn: There is a slow season, most typically for float centers in the summer.
Graham: Yeah. And that’s probably, I’m just going to assume that that’s what they mean.
Ashkahn: What they’re talking about, yeah.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: We’ve seen centers change their hours. We’ve seen a center go as far as just literally closing for like a month and a half, or two months in the middle of the summer.
Graham: Yeah, so people do it. It kind of makes sense. If you’re operating at just a ridiculous capacity, like 30% capacity, then being open for full hours when you’re normally rocking 75 or 80% capacity is a little hard to kind of justify there.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s tough. My instinct would not be to shut down for like a month, just because, if for any reason, we do so much work to try to get people to build floating in as part of their routine and their habits. Float once a week, have this membership, make floating a part of your life. To all of a sudden just cut off everyone’s access to it for a chunk of time feels like it really discourages that, or at least kind of breaks the flow for a lot of people. I’m sure it’s hard to recover members and kind of get back into the swing of things from being closed for a period of time like that.
Graham: Yeah. Ideally not shutting down entirely.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: But as far as cutting back hours, the plus side is hopefully you’re saving money in staffing during the time that you’re not open.
Ashkahn: And hopefully those people who would have been floating in those early or late hours are happy to float at a more middle of the day sort of time.
Graham: Yeah. You’re kind of just condensing your schedule, rather than losing-
Ashkahn: Hopefully. I mean, that’s the tricky part, right?
Graham: This is, we’re in Hopeful Land right now.
Ashkahn: Okay, alright. Hopefully that’s what you’re doing.
Graham: You’re cutting back hours, you’re saving money on staffing, and you’re not really losing that much in terms of floaters who would’ve gone with you.
Ashkahn: Mm-hmm.
Graham: I’d say the biggest downside is the staffing. The fact that you’re trying to cut back on staffing hours means your staff doesn’t have as many hours as they used to. That’s hard on people. People kind of schedule their lives around their jobs, lots of times, so just to have a season where they need to pick up other work, or something like that feels difficult.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and I think some people just really like floating at certain times of day.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: It’s not like getting a haircut, where it’s just like, “Oh, okay, maybe I’ll just scoot my haircut appointment earlier.” I think people choose the time of day they want to float because it affects the experience that they have.
Graham: I do think our regular 2:00 a.m. floaters come in at that time for a specific reason.
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: And then that would be the time that we would’ve had-
Ashkahn: It’s not because their schedule’s so full they’re like, “Oh, maybe I’ll just float at 2:00 in the morning.”
Graham: Yeah, right. If we were to cut hours, for example, during the summer, 2:00 a.m. would be-
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: The first slot that we’d look at cutting. Even cutting an absurd time most float centers aren’t even open, we’d be alienating some of our floaters.
Ashkahn: Yeah. I guess it’d be an interesting thing to test. You could try running over the course of two years, or maybe one month versus another and seeing what the actual impact on your total number of reservations is.
Graham: Really you should just not have a slow season.
Ashkahn: Yeah, yeah. It’s better to focus on filling your tanks up than it is cutting your schedule, definitely.
Graham: And even to the degree of giving away a lot of free floats, which we preach a lot. But we don’t adjust our schedule during the summertime, which very much is a huge slow season if you’re in the Pacific Northwest.
Ashkahn: I don’t really hear of float centers doing it that much, either. I don’t hear a lot of people saying they have summer hours and non-summer hours.
Graham: Mm-hmm. Yeah. When I do, I guess it’s often even smaller centers. If we’re talking about one or two tanks, I think it’s more similar there, or sometimes I know practices that are one or two tanks, and the person also does massage, and it’s sort of more a one man show, or someone with one or two other workers with them. That’s kind of when I’ll see maybe more of a variable schedule, depending on seasons. Or, in tourist towns, as well.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: I’ll definitely see an adjustment on schedules for just height of tourist season versus not. That’s-
Ashkahn: Yeah. Seasonality with tourist towns is just a whole different beast.
Graham: Yup.
Ashkahn: Seasonality for us is just people having different behaviors in the summer, as opposed to just like, “Oh, yeah, there are a quarter of the people in this place than there are in these during the middle of ski season, in the middle of summer.” Yeah, it’s definitely a different beast.
Graham: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, are there any other downsides besides that? Kind of making it a little harder on staff when they need to fill in hours, if you’re cutting back hours, and making it hard on your customers if they have a specific time that they like to actually get in there and float.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I guess what the other thing I’d say is that when you change your hours, specifically when you add hours, it can take a little bit of time for people to get back in the swing of realizing you’re open those hours.
Graham: Mm-hmm.
Ashkahn: You’re going to have, when you add those hours back, it’s going to be probably slow in those hours for a couple weeks until people realize, “Oh, actually I can float at 9:00 p.m. again, or 9:00 in the morning again.” It’s not one of those things where you just open it up and instantly those are back to normal. I’ve noticed that when we, in the times that we did add hours as we expanded our schedule, it just took a little bit for people to really get in the know again, and realize that those times are available and start booking them. There was kind of a ramp up.
Graham: Yeah, you’re kind of pushing that boulder again from zero momentum.
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: There’s a little bit of inertia that you have to build up when you change anything. If this is a regular thing you’re doing every year, maybe some of your customers will start to recognize that pattern and get used to it, but let’s face it, you’re a float center. It’s not like you’re school, or something that’s primary in people’s lives, where all of a sudden, summer schedule versus regular school year schedule is this huge transition. You’re at most usually not a giant part of people’s lives.
Ashkahn: Mm-hmm.
Graham: Expecting anyone to really understand exactly when your hours shift is-
Ashkahn: Yeah, like they keep great track of that.
Graham: Ambitious.
Ashkahn: Uh-huh.
Graham: And-
Ashkahn: And-
Graham: What were you going to say?
Ashkahn: Yeah, I guess at the end of the day, mostly people can get floats throughout different times of the day, and that extra money is often enough to pay for the cost of being open for longer. I think it’d be a little hard to really feel like you’re tipping the scales cutting off huge chunks of hours, because you still have rent, you still have so many other kind of fixed costs that come into play.
Graham: I’d tell them, the first thing I’d do before I thought about cutting back hours would be to just go out and find a group that I like and try to give away a lot of free floats and see if I can’t fix my holes in my schedule by being generous with that kind of currency of filling up the tanks without people paying. We see this cascade all of the time of if you give away those free floats and get the tanks full, paying customers come in. That would be step number one, and if that doesn’t work, then I could absolutely see cutting back hours and trying to condense the schedule.
Ashkahn: Yeah. But really try, keep track of the information. If I were to ever do it, I’d really want to look at the numbers and see what ended up happening. If you cut off a third of your schedule, and then you have a third less floats as a result, then you’ve made a mistake, right?
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Then you’re actually just losing money, as opposed to if people really did change their behavior and shift down to the available times of the day.
Graham: Yeah. Don’t just guess and shoot in the dark and call it good. Track everything, have an experiment minded philosophy when it comes to doing anything like this with a business, even if it’s just for a season.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Good luck out there. Obviously, if you’re thinking about cutting back hours, it means your capacity isn’t what you want in the slow season. Yeah, good luck with whatever route you decide to take.
Ashkahn: Cool, alright. Well, if you guys have more questions, you can go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Graham: And it’ll be great.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: We love getting them-
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: We’re excited every time one comes in.
Ashkahn: Super. When a bell goes off in our office here.
Graham: Is that-
Ashkahn: That’s what that noise has been.
Graham: I thought that was in my head. Alright, bye everyone.
Ashkahn: Bye.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Float Centers in Hip Neighborhoods – DSP 199
Do float centers in the hip part of town do better than ones on the outskirts? Graham and Ashkahn are well versed on this in that Float On is in a fairly hip part of Portland.
The guys break down some of the benefits of being one of the “cool” businesses in town as well as some of the serious drawbacks. Naturally, things like foot traffic aren’t as important. Almost no one walks into a float center and hops in a tank off the street. So there are fringe benefits to it, like awareness, but if you decide on going to a different part of town, then you’re not automatically doing a disservice to your brand.
Can You Clean a Float Tank with Vinegar? – DSP 198
You have to change out your float tank water eventually. Is it a good idea to give your float tank a vinegar cleanse when you do? is that effective? Is it too much work for the results? Are there better solutions to keep your tank clean and fresh?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss while providing assurances like “either you’re not crazy or we’re all crazy”, so that’s nice.
Have you Experienced Challenging Floats? – DSP 197
Graham and Ashkahn share stories about their most challenging floats. Everything from extreme physical discomfort to literally staying in too long.
They also share stories of floats from friends and customers that they’ve accumulated over the years and discuss the value of experiencing these difficult moments in the tank and how you might approach them when one occurs at your center.
What’s the Best Representation of Float Tanks in TV or Movies? – DSP 196
It happens every once in a while, a tv show or a movie will feature a float tank and the entire industry gets a jolt as if to say “we made it to the big time!”
But not all float tank cameos are created equal, so which one does it the best? What is the best representation of floating in media? Graham and Ashkahn go through the list of everything from Altered States to Stranger Things to find out what it is.
Is it Bad for Float Centers to Always be Running Discounts? – DSP 195
Welcome to the last episode in Social Media Week with Derek, Ashkahn, and Graham. If you haven’t listened to the other episodes in the series, it is strongly recommended that you start at the beginning especially for this episode as it references some points brought up earlier in the week.
Derek and Graham share some more intricacies of the Float On business philosophy and share their opinions on constantly running ads for floats through Groupon or on Social Media. Admittedly, Float On doesn’t run discounts very often, and they share why that is. They also talk about how to run discounts effectively and have a tough conversation about what to do if you want to break that cycle of constant discounts for your floats.
Latest Blog Posts
Lessons for Float Centers from a Mainstream Marketing Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend Copyblogger’s Authority Rainmaker Conference in Denver, Colorado. As a self proclaimed marketing nerd, this was an opportunity to mingle with my people. I believe no matter how much experience you have in...
A Quick Note on Insulation…
Insulating the roof/joists of your float center... Basically, what you're trying to do here to create an envelope around your space. You're trying to create a barrier between a conditioned environment (your float room) and an unconditioned environment (open air). This...
Encouraging Creativity After Floating
Most float tanks centers have customers. So as to have a place to put these customers where they will be able to sit, or stand, as they please and not be in the way, most float tank centers also have lobbies. So as to have something - some surface upon which these...
Float Center Education Through Internships
Why Have an Intern Program? I (Marshall) started my career in floating as an intern, coming in to the shop each Monday to learn about floating, sanitation, and better understand the intricacies of construction projects. For every four hours I worked, I was expected to...
